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Blisters LED Coco grow has reached it's inevitable end...

I've been away from the forum for some quite some time. Over the last 2.5 years I've been blessed with a son, have had to move to 2 different cities and transfer jobs twice. I really didn't have time or room to grow anything let alone focus on peppers. Now that I'm settled in and have a few extra $ on hand, I've been able to invest in a 180w UV Blackstar LED and have started growing in Coco.

Why coco? I've grown in soil before and had decent results. The problem was that my growing season is around 90 days. We don't get the heat or sun needed to grow super hots to their full potential. On top of this soil needs fairly large pots for the plants to really produce a large plant, but again we don't get the heat needed to let the pot dry out and stress the plant. I'd have great tasting peppers, but no heat.

I've done a bunch of reading (mostly the 420 sites) and it would appear that coco offers the ability to grow large plants in rather small pots. It offers a great root zone alternative that will allow you to develop massive roots. Once the root ball is fully developed, they fill the pot to the point that you can water every day (during growth), and every other day during fruiting. The ability to control the water/wilt schedule should allow the plant to stress out enough so that it produces nice hot peppers. We'll see how this works though.

Fertilizers I'm currently using are:

Botannicare 
- CNS-17 Grow (stand alone)
- CNS-17 Bloom (stand alone)

General hydroponics (using a modified version of H3AD's mixture)

- Flora Micro
- Flora Bloom


Advanced Nutrients 
- Monkey Juice A
- Monkey Juice B

Suppliments

- Botannicare Cal-Mag+
- Botannicare Huvega (nothing more than expensive dissolved epsom salt)

Problems experienced so far:

I had a bunch of issues getting the seeds started. They'd start, die. Next set wouldn't start. Set after that started and provided me with enough seedlings to get going. 

Next problem. I started with Botannicare's CNS-17 grow. Everything started fine, seedlings were doing ok, but it wasn't too long in before I realized that I had a huge problem with my tap water. It's extremely hard. After a few weeks the leaves were going yellow and dropping. Especially when I added a small amount of Cal-Mag+. The problem drove me a little nuts and is why I have a 3 different ferts! I didn't know the water was the problem and tried a different brand. Oh well. I bought a TDS Meter and found that my tap water is a little over 500ppm. After I found this out, I switched to bottled water and noticed an immediate improvement.

 I'm only growing two types of peppers so far:
- Yellow Scotch Bonnet (bought from Stokes)
- Bhut Jolokia (two strains. One from a friend and one that was bought off e-bay by my in-laws).

EDIT:

Newly added pepper! Jamison was kind enough to provide me with MoA Bonnets! They arrived today (Dec 31, 2013).
 
Click to expand...
First run of the Hempy Bucket!

I selected one of the Bhuts i have growing. Although I usually wait until the root structure is better established I'm pretty anxious to see how this works so I bit the bullet and put a plant in. From what I've read, the plant really takes off once the root system taps into the small reservoir in the bottom of the pot.

New buckets bought to replace the more fragile buckets I previously had. While I was in the dollar store, I tested a number of buckets by pushing my thumb into the side. Moments before I purchased these and quickly fled the store I was flexing a bucket. Flex... flex... fle-CRACK! I put the bucket back, looked around to see if any one saw me, grabbed these and made my way to the cashier...

These are shorter than the previous buckets, but because they're wider at the base they hold the same amount ~8L. $3 each.



Bhut in a 5" square pot before getting it's new home.



1/4" hole approximately 2" from the bottom. This creates a small reservoir in the bottom of the bucket while still allowing for water to drain off.



I believe the original Hempy buckets used all coarse perlite as the grow medium. The modified buckets use coarse perlite filled up to the small hole drilled in the side of the bucket, then the rest is filled with coco.



Bhut Jolokia in the pot before filling it with coco. The root system is wrapping most of the pot and you can just make it out in the pot. I usually wait for greater root development, but as I said above, I was anxious to get this project under way!



I trimmed some of the lower leaves so the plant could be set a little deeper as well as to avoid any leaves from touching the coco. 



I have a few other plants that I may move up from the smaller pots to either a 4" round or the 5" square pots.

Neil
 
JJJessee said:
Get A Job, you Hempy!

:D 
Click to expand...
And get a haircut while you're at it!

:lol:

I paid a little over $1.50/g and got the smallest bag I could find. I'm hoping that it'll save on nutrients and allow me to go away for a few days without having to worry about watering them every day. Camping season is nearly upon us!

Neil
 
Devv said:
Am watching, as am clueless ;)
Ha!
Click to expand...
 

I'm in the same boat until the end of the year :)

 
Sm1nts2escape said:
I like the bucket with the drain hole and perlite. The roots are going to love that!
Click to expand...
I have an idea of how these SHOULD perform in the Hempys, but at the end of the day it could all be a big surprise. I've got a few more buckets so I'm going to try a trinidad scorpion and J-MoA in one as well.

Neil
 
Finally getting some sun! Got the ladies out soaking up some rays...



Bhut canopy in the Hempy bucket



Two bhuts, one in a Hempy and one in a 5" square pot



Potted up the remaining Bhut and two J-MoA's from their 2" pot to 4"ers. So far two of my J-MoAs have nice flat leaves. The one I potted up to the 5" square is stout and crumpled.



Supposed to be getting up around the mid-20's C for us this week. Not sure if we'll actually get it, but the plants should really love it. Looking forward to seeing how well these grow under natural light.

Neil
 
Stout is a damn good word for them plants.  Funny I read that you said it cause at the top of this page and the MoA thread,  that's all I thinking was "Damn them things are stout"! .  Your little boy will be able to hang a rope swing from them by the end of the summer!
 
Got my first pods on the Yellow Trinidad Scorpions! There's a bunch more starting on the plant, but chances are they'll drop as soon as I pot them up. The plants are growing great so far and it looks like they are growing true, but won't be able to really tell until they get larger.



Neil
 
Hempy Bucket #2. I put a Yellow Trinidad Scorpion into a hempy bucket tonight. I have a couple of yellows and reds, but tend to prefer the yellows. I picked the one with the best root development. The plant has a whack of pods and flowers on it, but since I just transplanted them I expect that most if not all will drop.

I'm also trying a new coco for this pot. I found some of the GroTec red label coco. It's a mix of pith, fibre and chunky coco pieces. It's drains extremely fast. I'm hoping the salt content is acceptable.

Roots







The buckets should allow me to go away for more than a few days and not worry about them drying out.

Neil
 
OKGrowin said:
your plants look  so much better than mine QQ. I just started regular nutes though so hopefully i catch up.
Click to expand...
 

Your plants will have no problems catching up and surpassing mine. Drip irrigation allows you to really control the dose and timing. It really can do some amazing things. I wish I had room to set it up. It'd really help take all the maintenance out of my schedule. Especially when go away.

Jamison said:
Stout is a damn good word for them plants.  Funny I read that you said it cause at the top of this page and the MoA thread,  that's all I thinking was "Damn them things are stout"! .  Your little boy will be able to hang a rope swing from them by the end of the summer!
Click to expand...
A swing at the very least! I can barely get through the leaves to water it. The leaves have completely grown over top of the 5" pot. Not sure if I'll be putting this into a hempy or a growbag. I've got a few others on the grow, but they don't come close to the stoutness (if that's a word) of this plant.





Update on my hempy bucket. I usually pull the plants and check out the root development, but because the hempy's are so big I have no idea how they're doing. Then I noticed a root poking out the hole...



It would appear that the roots are on their way down to the reservoir if they aren't already there.

Neil
 
Just a quick update for the night. Just got back from vacation and put my J-MoA into a hempy.



A shot of the current crop. 4 in hempy's and a few others in either 5" square pots or the 4" round pots. Got lots of pods on my Yellow Trinidad Scorpion. Some have the classic scorpion look, while others have a crazy "innie" tail. Not sure what to make of it. Will have to post more pictures later this week after I get settled in. Have some sun scald on a few plants as well.





SeanW said:
Filled up the bucket in 3 weeks? That's pretty much bonkers!
Click to expand...
 

Seems to be the norm with coco and hydro nutes. I'm sure the light has a large part in it as well though.

 
Devv said:
Very nice work Neil!
 
Stout monsters they are! AND pretty!
Click to expand...
Thanks Scott. I went away for a week and came back to some decent growth. They suffered a bit in transport, but nothing that they can't recover from. Going to have to do another update to show all the plants. I still feel a little behind, but given that we're only coming to the end of march, I should be ok for the Bhuts and scorps.

Neil
 
Those plants are really beautiful. Sun-scald is very difficult to avoid. Mine were totally out side for days with 6+ hours of sun and when I set them out into 10+ hours, they scalded.
 
So are you sticking with the coco on all you're plants outside? The new coco sounds great, but with the extra drainage, will the coco wick up enough from the res to keep them happy.
 
I'm at about 20% vermiculite
jRrcZ99l.jpg

on my SIPpys with tomatoes and theyz lovin' it with just the ring of ferts at the top.
 
I don't think I'd go a full 35% on the moss but  tweaking with verm may help with keeping the whole mass damp between waterings if that becomes an issue. Or do your hempy buckets use a soil cover and SIP tube?
 
Great updates man. Glad your plants are finally getting outside. Going to read back through your notes; my container skills are lacking.
 
Happy growin!
 
It's about time I did a major update on my plants.

Yellow Trinidad Scorpion in a Hempy Bucket. Got a few pods that have the classic scorpion stinger, but more than a few that have an inverted "innie" stinger if you will. Kind of crazy.



Pods



Yellow Trinidad Scorpion in 5" Square Pot



Red Trinidad Scorpion in 5" Square pot



Bhut Jolokia in a 5" Square pot



J-MoA's in a 4" round pot





Bhut Jolokia in 4" round pot



JJJessee said:
Those plants are really beautiful. Sun-scald is very difficult to avoid. Mine were totally out side for days with 6+ hours of sun and when I set them out into 10+ hours, they scalded.
 
So are you sticking with the coco on all you're plants outside? The new coco sounds great, but with the extra drainage, will the coco wick up enough from the res to keep them happy.
 
I'm at about 20% vermiculite

[Picture Clipped]
 
I don't think I'd go a full 35% on the moss but  tweaking with verm may help with keeping the whole mass damp between waterings if that becomes an issue. Or do your hempy buckets use a soil cover and SIP tube?
Click to expand...
Thanks JJJ! I'm sticking with coco for the plants all year whether they're inside or outside. I'm not too concerned about the coarse coco wicking up the nutrients. The idea of the Hempy bucket is that you water every other day, or every day if they need it. This keeps the roots up top fed. The nutrient that runs to the bottom refreshes the 2" reservoir to the point where excess drains out the small hole on the side. At some point the roots will grow down and into the reservoir. The reservoir provides a source of constant nutrient. 

I've seen some refer to the pots as 'passive hydro' in that the bottom portion is like DWC, but you aren't running pumps or anything else. I've seen some pretty impressive results on the other forums and have my fingers crossed it works as well for me and my chili's.

I'm curious to see how things work for your SIPpy's. Similar principle, different mediums.


maximumcapsicum said:
Great updates man. Glad your plants are finally getting outside. Going to read back through your notes; my container skills are lacking.
 
Happy growin!
Click to expand...
Thanks maximum! Been a while since I did a major update. I've been trying to get my plants out into the sun when possible, but it's not looking good for the next few days. High winds and lots of rain on the way. They were in a greenhouse at my dad's while I was on vacation, but they're back in the tub under the lights now.

Thanks for reading all!

Neil
 
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